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7 



THE POLICY OF THE ADMINISTRATION'. 



SPEECH 



OF 



101. W. D. KELLEY, OF PEIN., 

Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 31, 1862. 



The House being in Committee of the Whole 
l the state of the Union — 

Mr. KELLEY said : 

The evils of the country, Mr. Chairman, are 
uch aggravated by the want of leadership, 
tie Administration would, in my judgment, doj 
fell to announce a policy, clear, well defined,; 
id thorough, which should address itself toj 
e suppression of the rebellion and the punish-; 
ent of those who are participating in it. Such 
course would reanimate the public mind and 
tart; it would inspire with invincible enthu- 
ism our army, now diminishing by desertion, 
sease, and death, and deteriorating from loug- 
mtinued inaction ; it would invigorate the 
lblic credit ; the people would again pour out 

tir money, with confidence that it would be 
iplied to the preservation of that portion of 
eir property which might remain in their 
)ssession. 

For more than nine months the people have 
lown that we are at war. Every family has, 
5 it were, laid its first-born upon the altar of 
ie country. Every loyal State, save Maryland 
id Kentucky, hastened to send its contingent 
ito the field. Many of the people of Missouri 
•rayed themselves in behalf of the country, al- 
lough the authorities of the State were en- 
aged in and pledged to the rebellion. Every 
Dnstituency has instructed its Representative 

♦ax their property so as to give the Govern. 

mt the most abundant means for this pri 
lary object of theirs and of the country. Nine 
louths and more have elapsed since Sumter 
;11 — since the Secretary of War of the Davis 
anfederacy announced to the world his pur- 
ose of hoisting a traitor flag over this Capitol, 
ix hundred thousand men have been put into 



the field in behalf of the Republic. Yet Wash 
ington i3 beleagured and Richmond is not. 
When an exchange of prisoners is madp, 
give the enemy whoever they ask, and let t 1 
at their own convenient season return to 
whom they will, and the enthusiasm of the pt- 
ple is expected to be excited anew each moi 
ing by the announcement that all is quiet o 
the blockaded Potomac. 

Equally prejudicial is the fact, sir, that t 
speeches made upon this floor for the last tw- 
or three weeks are well calculated to produce 
the impression throughout the country that 
there is a difference between the Pre.<-ilent of 
the United States and those who brought hin; 
into power ; that he is no longer to look for 
support to his political friends, but must expect 
it from those who opposed his election, and who 
hope for the resurrection of that party which 
was a close corporation ; the proprietors of 
which were Slidell, Mason, Davis, Cobb, and 
half a dozen other Southern gentlemen, to 
whom Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and 
other so-called Democratic leaders, belonged in 
fee ; nay, sir, belonged — as the old stories have 
it the men who are supposed to have sold their 
souls to the devil belonged to that personage — 
not only in fee, the most enduring temporal 
title, but by a right which should read' 
through eternity. The speeches of the gentle 
man from Kentucky, [Mr. Wadsworth,] of the 
two gentlemen from New York, [Messrs. 
Steele and Diven,] and of my colleague frou 
the Luzerne district, [Mr. Wright,] have all 
been calculated to create that impression. The} 
view things from different stand-points, but th .-■; 
tuned their melodies to the same key-note, 
suppose that this harmony was accidental. 



: 

In these speeches, M . . Chairman, the changes 
have been rung on the words fanatic and con- 
servative; ami the idea has been suggested 
that there is such a thing in the world as a 
demagogue, and that possibly one may have 
crept upon this floor. Sir, the words fanaticism 
and conservatism are much abused ; of the 
demagogue nothing too vile can be said. Fa- 
naticism is zeal and enthusiasm for a cause. 
The fanatic is frank and honest as he is earnest. 
Fanaticism swells the rolls of heroes and mar- 
tyrs. The despised fanatic of today is often 
the adored idol of the future. With the fanatic 
the demagogue cannot be compared ; they can 
only be contrasted. The busiuess of the dema- 
gogue is deception. Artifice, trick, and chicane 
are his means. His ways are devious and tor- 
tuous, and you track him by the slime he de- 
posits as he crawls. A fanatic may bless man- 
kind ; but a demagogue is an evil ever and 
everywhere. Of the apostles, eleven were des- 
ignated by the people of their time as fanatics — 
the twelfth was a demagogue. He spoke fair 
words and kissed, and increased his estate by 
thirty pieces of silver — the price of Him he 
kissed. 

It may be that we have fanatics and dem- 
agogues amongst us ; but the President be- 
longs to neither class. He is a conservative 
man, alike loyal to the love of liberty, with 
which he is so plenteously imbued, and his 
duty to the Constitution, which he has sworn to 
preserve, protect, and defend. He is a con- 
servative man, not in the sense in which that 
word is used on the other side of the House — 
not a man who came into the world one genera- 
tion too late ; whose vision is from the back 
$ his head; who goes through the world as 
.he oarsman does his voyage, looking ever at 
the land he has passed, never at that which he 
is passing, or the point toward which he is mov- 
ing; who is so timid that he dreads a crisis that 
would jolt him out of the ruts of routine, and 
throw him upon his discretion, as the mariner 
upon a lee shore dreads the gales of March and 
November ; whose more generous instincts lie 
undeveloped, or are blunted or perverted ; who 
mistakes the sobs of the prison-house and the 
groans of the middle passage for the sweet 
voices of the angelic throng who hymn the 
beatitudes around the throne. Abraham Lin- 
coln, sir, is a truly conservative man, invested- 
with the power to preserve, and he will preserve 



i 

the Constitution and the integrity of our coun- 
try, although the army called into being by his 
words in doing it, crush out every iniquity 
which that instrument tolerates under its 
broad provisions. He will not permit the Con- 
stitution, laws, ordinances, or institutions of 
any State to stand in the way of the re-estab- 
lishment of the supremacy, entire and perfect, 
of the Constitution of the United States over 
all its territory. The sixth article of the Con- 
stitution says : 

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States 
which shall be made in pursuance there"!', and all treaties 
made, or which shall be made under the authority of the 
Onfted States, shall be the supreme law of the land ; and 
the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in 
the Constitution or laws of any Mate to the contrary notwith- 
standing." 

Sir, President Lincoln will enforce this provis- 
ion of the Constitution with all others. I caunot, 
as the gentleman from. New York [Mr. Diven] 
assumed to, speak for the President by special 
authority. He is a veracious man, and I pre- 
fer that he should speak for himself. I refer to 
his first general order as Commander-in-Chief 
of the army and navy. It rings with patriotic 
fervor : 

General Order in respect to the Battle of Mill Spring. 
Wak Department, January 22, 1862. 

The President, Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, 
has received information of a brilliant victory achieved by 
the United States forces over a large body bl armed traitors 
and rebels, at Mill Spring, iu the State of Kentucky. 

He returns thanks to the gallant officers and soldiers who 
won that victory, and when the official reports shall be re- 
ceived, the military skill and personal valor displayed in 
the battle will be acknowledged and rewarded ia a lifting 
manner. 

The courage that encountered and vanquished the greatly 
superior numbers of the rebel force, pursued and attacked 
thetn in their intrenchinents, and paused not until the ene- 
my was completely routed, merits and receives commenda- 
tion, the purpose of this war is to attack, pursue, and 
destroy a rebellious enemy, and to deliver the country from 
the danger menaced by traitors. Alacrity, daring, cour- 
ageous spirit, and patriotic zeal, on all occasions and under 
every circumstance, are expected from the army of the 
United States. In the prompt and spirited movements aud 
daring battle of Mill spring the nation will realize its hopes, 
and the people of the United States will rejoice to honor 
every soldier aud officer who proves his coinage- by ch 
ing with the bayonet aud storming iutrenchments in the 
blaze of the enemy's lire. 

By order of the President : 

EDWIN M. STANTON, 

Secretary of War. 

Sir, while that order rings in our ears, may 
we not hope that General Order No. 2 will be 
addressed to the officers and soldiers of the 
army, prohibiting them from ursurping the 
functions of the deputy marshal and the com- 
missioners of the United States courts, and 
from — for fee, reward, or other consideration — 
sending a free negro into slavery, or per- 
forming such duties as the lowest type of a 
police officer shrinks from as degrading ? 
Some gentlemen may be disposed to quibble 



Uil^ 



/// 



about the intent of that order. If they do, I 
ask their attention to two facts. One is, that 
the theory of General James H. Lane, of Kan- 
sas, is that the only way to suppress this rebel- 
lion is to have two armies simultaneously in 
motion — a, white one moving South and a 
colored on-} moving North. The other fact is, 
that the President of the United States has 
just sent that general to lead an independent 
column through Arkansas and Texas. 

Mr. VOORHEES. Will the gentleman per- 
mit me? 

Mr. KELLEY. Only for the purpose of 
explanation. I decline to yield for anything 
else. 

Mr. VORIIEES. I rise for explanation my- 
self. 

Mr. KELLEY. In some of the speeches I 
have referred to, it is stated to be the purpose 
of a majority of this House to Africanize Amer- 
ican society. Sir, that is not the object of any 
gentleman on this floor. The Republican par- 
ty did not advocate the reopening of the slave 
trade. Republicans never boasted that a newly 
imported African was tha " noblest Roman on 
their plantations." They have resisted, I un- 
dertake to say, every attempt to Africanize 
this country. 

The gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr, Wads- 
worth,] in the course of his remarks, said : 

"You have tried, and what success have you met, in 
winning away to freedom the negro? You bave bad your 

missionaries among them endeavoring to instill some ideas 
of freedom, &c., into the negro mind. His idea of freedom 
is that of a state in which he will be exempt from labor." 

I will not answer that proposition ; but will 
let one of the most distinguished men of our 
navy, himself a native and a citizen of a slave 
State — one whose name will stand as high upon 
the scroll of American patriots as any other — 
auswer it for me. I hold in my hand an ex- 
tract from a private letter of his, in which, after 
speaking of the important information in the 
possession of the commanders of the military 
and naval portions of the expedition at Port 
Royal, in a letter dated January 1, 1SG2, he 
says : 

" Much of this knowledge comes from a higher order of 
' contrabands,' wh > arc coming i" us daily — many of them 
skillful pilots in these inland waters. Xhey s irvo us with 
zeal, make no bargains for their remuneration, go under 
tire without the slightest hesitation ; and, indeed, m our 
cause, are ' insensible to fear ' as Governor Pickens. Seme 
of thorn are very intelligent. One, now on board the Wait i b 
as pilot, who took our boats up the Beaufort and Cheraw 
rivers, through brick-yards and I do not know what, paid 
his mastor thirty-live dollars a mouth for his time ; and on 
being asked why ho cared to be free, asked his inquirer if 
he had ever read the fable of the dog and the fox. This 
beoiu.i a little too bright to be true ; but if you were to seo 



the man , you would not find it difficult to believe it quite 

possible.'' * * ****** 

"Then, again, the possession and occupation are com- 
plete and thoro b n irl ore repaired ; intrenchments 
on a very large soalo about finished ; great store-houses 
have gone up; immense stables erecting, causing a I 
to the bean of the poor contraband, who contrasts the com 
forts ofa Northern horse with his own in past lite ; wharves 
are building ; the channels are buoyed ; surveys going on ; 
and the waters, as if touched by some Ithuriel'a spear, are 
teeming with the life of the Northmen." 

The gentleman from Kentucky, in the course 
of his remarks, made use of many phrases, 
and some arguments which I think he will re- 
consider before the session is over. I quote 
only two or three brief paspages : 

" Now, sir, I do not give in to any such interpretation of 
the Constitution as that. Not one dollar will I vote, not one 
man will I grant for any such purpose, or to sustain any 
such interpretation. N~ay, more, sir, I will give all that my 
people have, their cattle on a thousand hills, their slaves. lh> ir 
lands and tenements, their lives, even to the last one of them, to 
i- fist any attempt to enforce such a construction of See Consti- 
tution as that to the ruin of the pen-pie of this count //." 
* * * * " The gentleman from Ohio is disposed 
to treat this as a rebellion — to treat it as a war — (1/ it can 
be called a ivar at all) — against insurgent citizens whose du- 
ties and whose rights arc bounded by the Constitution." 

I grant that it does not seem much like war 
here on the Potomac, but in the gentleman's 
own Kentucky my constituents find it to be 
war, for they are there with muskets on their 
shoulders, and uuder commanders who believe 
in motion. The gentleman says further : 

" After Kentucky has remained firm, notwithstanding that 
ton of her Southern sisters have gone with South Carolina, 
clinging to sister States for strength, we want to know of the 
people of the North if they are going to unclasp the loving 
arms of Kentucky, and fling her into tltat vortex which has 
swallowed so many kindred States." * * * * 

" The worst course that you can pursue, in my humble 
judgment, is to attempt to confiscate the slaves or other 
property of the inhabitants of the rebel States. I declare 
thai confiscation, without emancipation, is odious to me in 
all ils forms. To strike down the ownership of property in 
eleven States is monstrous ; to proscribe the multitude and 
millions Is gigantic wickedness. I declare that confiscation, 
with compensation, is doubly lions to me, and never can 
be acceptable to my people. They will resist it by all law- 
ful means, and to the death." 

Sir, the people of the North do not want to 
throw Kentucky off. The thousands of Penn- 
sylvanians who are in that State in arms are 
not there to drive her out of the Union, but to 
keep her in ; and under God and the Constitu- 
tion they and the men of the North will keep 
her in; and in this patriotic work they will, I 
believe, have, as they have now, the power ot 
Kentucky to aid them. She has no disposition 
to go ; and the time has gone past for threaten 
ing, in her name, to appeal to any other arbiter 
than the Supreme Court of the United S ates 
to decide upon the constitutionality, or validity, 
or perpetuity of an act of Congress approved 
by the President. 

I will not further animadvert upon the re- 
marks of the gentleman. I know his generos- 
ity and loyalty, and can make allowances for 
the heat and earnestness with which he spoke. 



I am sure that he is as willing, personally, to 
submit to the action of Congress and the decrees 
of the proper courts as any man upon this floor, 
notwithstanding the expressions which he drop- 
ped in the heat of debate. 

The gentleman from New York, [ Mr. 
Steele,] who does me the honor to sit near me, 
and whose fancy revels in "forked flames," 
"loaded magazines,' "lighted torches," the 
'• slackness of darkness," "giants," "pigmies," 
•'devils," and other such delightful objects, 
•jrew, to use his own exquisite phraseology, 
'ferociously eloquent" upon these themes. 
mong other things, he told us how "sicken- 
er" it is to him to hear the "ravings of fa'nati- 
ism" suggest that the area of human freedom 
ly possibly be extended, and the prostrate 
I degraded rise to the stature of manhood, 
deplore, as much as any gentleman on thi3 
)or can do, the vertigo and nausea which 
flict the gentleman. I do not think, however, 
.e case is a fatal one. I am no physician ; 
i it I think I can prescribe for the gentleman's 
[3. Let there be a little change in his mental 
uiiment. Let him avoid the dead Lippard and 
the living Cobb. Let him take, in small por- 
tions at first, the last prayer— I do not suggest 
prayer because I think death is approaching — 
he last prayer that Benjamin Franklin uttered 
the bar of the American Congress, about six- 
y days before the death of that great man. 
Let him, if this prove a tonic, superadd a little 
»f the will of George Washington, with a slight 
1 inkling of some of his letters; and when he 
shall be somewhat invigorated, let him look 
into the writings of Jefferson, the speeches of 
! 'rick Henry, and the speeches and writings 
other southern slaveholding leaders of the 
;od old times to which we all look back with 
veneration, and I will guarantee that the fer- 
yor and frequency of his paroxysms will dimin- 
ish, and that he will get through the session with 
rolerable comfort. [Laughter.] He, too, sup- 
3 the Administration. Th* gentleman from 
lentncky did so also ; he pledged himself, in 
all emergencies, to stand by it. The gentleman 
hi New York [Mr. Steele] says: " Let us 
trust in God, and the Administration which is 
./iven us for this emergency." I hope God will 
t ike care of us ; but he adds : 

"No doubt, if we Stan 1 firm in our efforts to protect and 

Bei ■ " ' 1 Co titution and 1 mm ml in defl mce of 

e ravings of ma men,i ion and treachery 

ked ones, the Administration will help us. I will go | 
1 if we ;u-e so facile as to yield I 



to the rushing tide of fanaticism, the Administration wil' 
still strive to save the Union iu spite of Congress." 

In like vein was the speech of my colleague, 

[Mr. Wright.] He begins by disavowing all 

responsibility for the Administration. He says: 

"As I have said, I had no part in the elevation of Mr. 
Lincoln to the Executive chair. He was not my nominee ; 
he did not receive my vote. I bad no hand in his elevation. 
I assert, however — and I speak it not only to the House but 
to tlie world — that I believe Abraham Lincoln has a patriotic 
heart in his body." 

The gentleman's Republican constituents 
will be grateful to him for that assurance. He 
continues : 

"I am one of those who think not only that he means 
well, but that he acts well " 

Did he mean to intimate that gentlemen on 

this side of the House did not think so, or had 

expressed doubts of it ? He tells us again : 

'•I came here elected upon conservative principles ; and 
I say to you , and I assure this House, that I have not cast a 
solitary vote, since I have been a member upon this floor, 
but what has accorded with my own convictions of what 
was right and proper to be done." 

My colleague endorses all the votes he has 
cast, and claims to stand by the Administra- 
tion. Did he stand by it, sir, when at the 
extra session he voted against direct taxation ? 
Did he stand by it, and wish to give it the 
means to carry on the war, when he resisted 
the tax on tea and coffee? Sir, the 15th day 
of January, 1862, was a dark and gloomy day 
in the life of our country. The public credit 
was prostrated ; the specie clause of the sub- 
Treasury bill had been suspended ; the banks 
of the country had suspended specie payments ; 
there had ceased to be harmony between the 
Secretary of the Treasury and those who had 
so ably co-operated with hiin; the manufacto- 
ries employed on Government work stood still ; 
the business of the cities was suspended ; the 
banking institutions of the large cities sent 
delegations here, and merchants, manufactu- 
rers, mechanics, and others, sent delegations to 
support them ; and these patriotic representa- 
tives of the wealth, industry, and enterprise of 
the country implored Congress to give, by res- 
olution or otherwise, an immediate assurance 
that taxes would be levied sufficient to afford 
the country $150,000,000 annual income, so as 
to revivify the public credit, and to en-rgize 
the army and navy and the Government of the 
country. Ou that, day, sir, thus impelled, the 
gentleman from New York, [Mr. Corning,] 
on behalf of the Committee of Ways and 
Means, reported a joint resolution pledging 
the two Houses of Congress to raise by tax- 
ation §150,000,000. ■ No- sooner was it read 



//f 



than the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Vallan- 
dioham] sprarig to the floor and proposed to 
postpone its consideration until the next Tues- 
day week — to postpone for thirteen days, during 
which the credit of the country would have 
died. And how did my patriotic friend, who a 
week afterwards boasted thus of the patriotism 
of his course, vote upon that question? The 
twenty-sixth name of those who voted for the 
| postponement is that of my colleague. I won- 
der, inasmuch as he gave us a description of 
Jack Falstaff'a compauy, aud is, doubtless, 
familiar with the language of the worthless 
old knight, that when he had uttered this bit 
of self complacency he did not add: "There 
lives not three honest men unhanged in Eng- 
land ; and one of them is old and grows fat." 
[Great laughter.] 

Mr. WRIGHf . Will the gentleman indulge 
me a moment? 

Mr. KELLEY. I will not indulge my col- 
league unless it be for an explanation, which 
comes within the rule. The gentleman will 
want further indulgence before I am through, 
I and I would rather he would take my replies 
i all in one batch, after I shall have concluded. 

The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman 
yield to his colleague? 

Mr. KELLEY. I do not. 

Mr. WRIGHT. Why, I yielded to the gen- 
| tleman the other day when I had the floor, and 
not for explanation at all. 

Mr. KELLEY. I know the gentleman did, 
and I saw the discomforture that resulted from 
it, and took a lesson. 

Mr. WRIGHT. Well, I shall know better 
in future. 

Mr. KELLEY. The gentleman proceeded 
to quote the President's proclamation of the 
15th of April, and to comment upon it. I had 
thought the language of that proclama'ion 
very direct and simple. The President says: 

" I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to 
the forces hereby called forth will probably bo to repossess 
the forts, places, and property which have been seized from 
the Union ; and in every event the utmost care will be ob- 
served, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any 
devastation, any destruction of, or interference with, prop- 
erty, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of 
the country." 

Commenting on that passage, the gentleman 



" What did the President mean by alleging, when he called 
a military force into the field, that there should be no in- 
terference what -ver with property of any kind? Sir, if he 
meant anything, ho meant that this question of slavery agi- 
tation should b" et alone ; or, in his own language, that there 
should be 110 interference with property." 



Sir, that may have been the President's 
meaning. I do not think it was. That it was 
is, however, possible ; for genius has its eccen- 
tricities and literature its curiosities. But, sir, 
if such was his meaning, he ought to have bor- 
rowed the measure, as well as the logic, of the 
mad nursery rhyme : 

" Mother, may I go in to swim? 
Yes, my darling daughter ; 
Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, 
But don't go near the water." 

An army of seventy -five thousand men called 
out to repossess forts, to regain the largest and 
best cannon of the country, to use the heaviest 
guns that can be cast, the sharpest swords, the 
farthest-reaching rifles — called out for martial 
purposes, and pledged to injure no property. 
" Kill these men ; but take care that you do it 
without cutting their pantaloons, for they are 
property." " Break their arms ; but on your 
peril don't hurt their coats." " Get back this 
property ; but on your peril don't cause one of 
them to lose a pair of shoes by flight." Is not 
this going to swim while avoiding the water? 
The President was guilty ef no such absurdity. 
Earnest fanaticism, or honest conservatism, can 
put no such construction on the President's 
language. Proceeding on this disingenuous 
theory, the gentleman says : 

"I venture to say that there are hundreds and thou- 
sands, who compose the rank and file of that army, who 
would leave it just as soon as they wore informed that its 
mission was not to put down rebellion, but to emancipate 
slaves." 

And when, at a later period, he reiterated 
this suggestion, I could not abstain from ask- 
ing him — and I repeat the question here for a 
future answer — whether he believed that any 
one of the hundred thousand soldiers of Penn- 
sylvania would prove false to his oath and loy- 
alty if the result of this war would be to give 
some poor mothers the ownership of their own 
babes, or whether he believed that the people 
of Pennsylvania would repudiate the war if one 
of its results should be to give significance to 
the words parent, child, family, home, and 
country to some poor men whose Saxon fathers' 
spirit chafes under the servitude their darker 
skin entails upon them ? 

Sir, who on this floor has intimated that this 
war should be converted into a war of emanci- 
pation ? Who on this floor has suggested any 
other object for it than the crushing out of this 
rebellion? Gentlemen have differed as to the 
means of crushing it out; but no gentleman, 
not even my friend from Illinois, [Mr. Love- 



6 



jot,] about whom so much is often said, has 
suggested any other object for this war than 
the crushing out of rebellion. We have all 
said, and so the President understands, that the 
way to do it is to deprive the enemy of their 
resources, and to bring — as the commanders of 
the army and fleet at Port Royal have done — 
the services of every loyal man to the standard 
of his country, even though his skin should not 
be colored like our own. My colleague mis- 
represented grossly the majority on this floor 
when, by innuendo or assertion, he sent to the 
country the impression that we are endeavor- 
ing to convert the war into a war for emanci- 
pation. He subsequently said: 

" Gentlemen have gone so far — I do not stop to inquire 
whether or not they are in ibis House — upon this question 
of negro slavery, that if the question were put to them, 
whom will you have delivered to yon to-day? they would 
say, ' Barabbas,' the negro; crucify the white man." 

That is the suggestion of an impious fancy, 
uttered to slander a body of honorable men. 
No man on this floor has uttered a sentence 
from which such an inference could be drawn. 
But, sir, after all this, what became of the gen- 
tleman's theory? Why, sir, under the probing 
of half a dozen gentlemen, it leaked out reluc- 
tantly, and with slight explanation from him, 
that he, too, is in favor of confiscating the prop 
erty of rebels. I know not whether there was 
joy in heaven over the conversion of a repent- 
ant sinner at that moment; but I do know that 
a thrill of delight went through this House at 
finding the gentleman ready to come squarely 
and steadily into the support of what the Pres- 
ident has been doing, and of the view which 
seems to control a majority of this House. 

The honorable gentleman from New York 
[Mr. Divex] took a hand in this matter also. 
He told us what he need not have done, for we 
all knew it, that he was a "modest young man, 
and easily disconcerted." We saw, also, that he 
was under the fascination of some maiden, 
strong-minded or otherwise. He dealt gently 
with us. I will not recapitulate the gentleman's 
remarks, at this time, for two reasons: artists 
tell us that an unfinished picture should not be 
judged; and the gentleman promises the con- 
clusion of Li; address hereafter. It was very 
i ar that he was not exercising his full force. 
He dealt none of the bolts of Jove at us. He 
did not even puncture us with arrows from Cu- 
pid's quiver, which he evidently had at com- 
mand about that time. He gave us an illustra- 
tion of Hercules in the hands of Omphale. He 



played gently with her distaff. The blows he 
struck us were with the most delicately-tinted 
and perfumed flowers from the parterre of the 
fair Anna Ella; and when he comes to the 
more masculine portion of his argument, I will 
seek an opportunity to consider it. 

Sir, brief time is left me, and I hasten to the 
point of the Africanization of American society 
and American labor. I have said that the 
members cf the dominant party on this floor 
are not advocates of the reopening of the slave 
trade ; that we do not advocate the extension 
of the colored institution through the whole 
free Territories of the country ; and that we 
are in favor of opening means by which colored 
men can leave our country and find a happier 
home. Sir, nature works by invariable laws. 
It is by no freak of hers that the light of day 
paints the likeness of our loved ones. It is by 
no such freak that the wire bears the message 
of joy or woe over land and under water. He 
who traverses our continent finds on the Pacific 
slope of the Rocky mountains the grandest ar- 
boriferous vegetation of the world. On the 
eastern slope, divided thence by a narrow strip, 
which produces its effects on the clouds, you 
lose all arboriferous vegetation. You find only 
the red sage ; you find nothing larger growing 
there. The same skies are over; the same God 
watches; but He works through wise and in- 
flexible laws, and thus teaches men to look to 
Him through nature for guidance. On the Pa- 
cific slope the earth is refreshed by ninety 
inches of rain each year, while on the eastern 
slope but five fall. The negro is the creature 
of the tropics. Submit him to the guidance 
of his own instincts and volition, and he will 
find his way to the tropics, or lauds lying near 
them. Nature's unerring law will lead him 
there. The cruellest monument of "man's in- 
humanity to man " that I can point to to-day is 
that colony of fifty thousand American negroes 
living in the cold wilds of Canada. As well 
might you expect the tree of the Pacific slope 
to thrive in the region of the sage, or the sage 
to thrive under its broad shadow, and with 
ninety inches of rain falling in the year. The 
n ( groes will wilt, and dwindle, and prematurely 
die there. 

We all know, the gentleman knows, and 
those with whom he votes — who give kind words 
and hard blows to the Administration — know 
that the President and hi3 real friends on this 



/20 



floor are in favor of the recognition of the re- 1 
public of Liberia, of extending to Hayti com- 
mercial relations, of procuring within the Amer- 
ican tropics lands where the negro, made free 
by the crimes of his master, may go and dwell 
as nature intended him to. This the President 
recommends, and all this the majority on this 
floor intend to consummate. We are for re- 
taining for the Saxon, the Celt — the Caucasian 
family — that portion of this continent which 
was intended for them. They who misrepre- 
sent us are for infusing black blood into the 
veins of the country. Sir, I have opened a 
wide field for discussion. I care not now to 
enter into it. The hammer will soon fall. The 
President whom we support honestly — conserva- 
tively or fauatically as it may be — but whom 
we support, recommends us to pursue what has 
long been an object of interest to him and 
those with whom he has labored politically. I 
will allude to Liberia at the present time only 
far enough to show that it refutes the theory of 
the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Wads- 
worth,] that the negro's only idea of freedom 
is relief from labor. There, to the western 
coast of Africa, where the white man cannot 
live, we have sent ten thousand freed bondmen, 
or the descendants of such. And what have 
they done ? Performed a miracle. They have 
created cities, towns, schools, universities, and 



churches. They have assimilated, civilized, 
and Christianized — those ten thousand poor, il- 
literate, freed slaves, and the descendants of 
such — have civilized and Christianized two 
hundred thousand heathen semi-barbarians. 

In view of this fact alone, will you tell me 
that God created negroes only to be trampled 
upon by another race, and treated as soulless 
cattle ? If it be true that there are parts of our 
own country in which the white man cannot 
live ; if it be so, then I say plant the negro 
there. Rice is wanted, cotton is wanted, to- 
bacco, and all tropical and semi-tropical pro- 
ductions are wanted. The laborer is worthy of 
his hire, and it is wrong to muzzle the ox that 
treadeth out the corn. And if it be true that 
there are parts of our country in which the 
black man alone can live and labor, in God's 
name, if you want peace aud justice, give it to 
him ; but at any rate, stand by the Adminis- 
tration, and by President Lincoln, who knows 
that — 

" Tender handed stroke a nettle, 
And it stings you for your pains; 
Grasp it like a man of mettle, 
And it soft as silk remains." 

Give him all the means, all the arms, and all 
the men he calls for, and trust him to drive his 
generals onward. 

[Here the hammer fell.] 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

BCAMMELl & CO., PRINTERS, CORNER OE SECOND & INDIANA AVENUE, THIRD FLOOR. 

1862. 



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